Search results
This Ain't No Picnic Lyrics: Working on the edge / Losing my self-respect / For a man who presides over me / The principles of his creed / Punch in, punch out / Eight hours, five days /...
People also ask
What does This Ain't No Picnic mean?
Was This Ain't No Picnic filmed in black and white?
What happened to Minutemen?
How many times did Minutemen tour in 1984?
- Overview
- Background
- Video
- Live performances
"This Ain't No Picnic" is a Minutemen song from their 1984 double album Double Nickels on the Dime. It was composed by their lead singer and guitarist D. Boon.
Boon composed the song after a dispute with the boss of an auto parts store where he was employed. According to Michael Azerrad's book Our Band Could Be Your Life, Boon wanted to put a Los Angeles-area jazz/soul station on the radio, but his boss prevented him from doing so, calling the station's playlist "nigger shit". Boon was disgusted enough in...
"This Ain't No Picnic" was tapped to be the Minutemen's first ever music video, directed by Randall Jahnson and shot in black and white for $600. The "plot" has the Minutemen singing the song in a barren field that is about to be machine gunned and then bombed by then-president Ronald Reagan (as seen in clips from a public domain US Army World War II training film he starred in). The "machine gun" fire while the Minutemen are playing was actually buried firecrackers, triggered by a car battery.
The video earned some airplay on MTV and was also featured on their first-ever MTV Video Music Awards show in 1985. The video is included as one of the bonus features of the We Jam Econo DVD.
A popular live favorite during the Minutemen's lifetime (it topped fan balloting when the Minutemen were planning a live album that became, after Boon's car-crash death, the live compilation album Ballot Result), bassist and band co-leader Mike Watt revived the song for live performance in 2003 at the instigation of his Secondmen organist Pete Mazi...
Made for $440 by a University of California, Los Angeles graduate, Anthony Johnson, "This Ain't No Picnic" was Minutemen's first video and was later nominated for an MTV award. It features the band playing amidst rubble as a fighter plane "piloted" by Ronald Reagan, edited from public domain footage, fires at them.
- November 1983–April 1984
- Ethan James
- July 3, 1984
Songfacts®: This song targets a racist boss who Minutemen guitarist, D. Boon, worked for at an auto parts store. Boon asked if he could tune the store's radio to a funk station, but his boss refused, calling the station "African-American excrement."
